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For years now I have been a fan of Japanese snacks. For a while I even collected funky flavoured Kit Kats. It was great pleasure then when snack subscription boxes from Japan became a thing. JList were super lovely to send me one of their DX boxes, so here’s my Jlist snack box review!

The JList snack box comes in two sizes, the normal one and the DX one. DX box has more items, including premium snacks and a bottled drink. Smaller boxes retail at $19.99 and larger boxes retail at $29.99

JList snack boxes aren’t really a subscription though. Instead of subscribing for a few months or whatever, you just pre-order it every month. It’s a first come first served policy.

This has some fantastic benefits. For instance you’ll know exactly what you’re getting in each box when you order. You also don’t have to be committed to getting one for any set amount of time and can instead simply buy on the months you want the snacks. On the downside, there is a risk that the boxes sell out before you’re able to pre-order them.

Inside my box

It’s always a great feeling to receive a snack box. It feels like opening a present. I always get excited for them. For this box, I didn’t know what I was getting as I hadn’t checked the listing previous to Jlist sending it to me.

I like not knowing what’s going to be in the box, because in general I love most snacks. However with the JList box, you do get to know what’s in the box before it arrives, so I’m not sure if that would ruin the experience for some people. It really depends on what you value more, a surprise, or knowing 100% you’re going to like what’s in the box.

The box is well packaged, and it feels pretty stuffed. There are two packets of crisps (chips for Americans) and because of how it’s packaged the crisps aren’t broken or crushed. There’s a selection of snacks in various sizes, both sweet and savoury.

This month’s bottled drink is Sakura Coca Cola. The bottle looks great and this is a fantastic collector’s item if you’re into that. It matches the theme of Spring as it’s currently Sakura season in Japan. Pepsi did a similar thing before.

There were 16 items in the box, which is a pretty standard number for a $30 snack box. Two of the items were crisps, which is a little unusual but I’m not complaining. The edition of Pocky and Kit Kat felt very special as they are the most popular snacks.

The Technical side

The box came fairly quickly by post. There were no problems regarding damage to the box or it’s contents. The box itself is slightly larger than other snack boxes, being a little more rectangular than the popular square format. This did allow for the two crisps packets to fit in snuggly.

Unlike with my other subscription boxes JList did not include any information on the snacks inside the box. One of the things I’ve come to love about other snack boxes is the little booklet that explains what everything is, since it’s not always obvious. Obviously you can check the information on the product listing page – before the listing is taken down. But that feels like a bit of a faff.

The box came with some anime eye paper glasses and some JList tissues – iconic add-ons you get with any JList orders.

I liked that the colouring and graphics of the box are fairly low-key. It’s obvious it’s a JList box, but it’s not super ridiculous. The box itself can be pretty handy after use, but is also easy to disassemble for recycling.

Verdict

I think JList have a great option for a Japanese Snack Box. They don’t need to compete with the monthly subscription boxes. You get a slightly different experience with them. Rather than putting yourself in a contract for x amounts of months, you can simply order a box of snacks when you have the spare money or when snacks you really want crop up.

I would certainly check their monthly offerings, and would consider buying them occasionally. Especially when limited editions of Kit Kat feature. However I wouldn’t replace my other subscription boxes for them, as I enjoy the surprise of getting known snacks in a box.

The fact the box doesn’t come with more information on the snacks itself is a little disappointing. It feels less like a special box of stuff, and more like just a random shopping box. I feel that the other subscription services go the extra mile in that sense. For those of us who are super into foreign snacks, the added information is a very big reason for our orders.

  • Delivery – 10/10
  • Packaging – 9/10
  • Contents – 7/10
  • Value – 7/10
  • Customer Service – 9/10

Overall 42/50 – Would recommend

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